Newsroom Stories

​Recalling long lists of random words, numbers and playing cards will be the challenge this weekend as two dozen of the world’s top memory athletes square off in San Diego for the 2015 Extreme Memory Tournament, an annual competition sponsored by Washington University in St. Louis and Dart NeuroScience.

​Washington University will present a special screening of the documentary “The Hunting Ground” for faculty and staff Wednesday, May 6 at 3:15 p.m. in Room L006 of Seigle Hall. The event is free and no advance registration is required.​

Student-designed hand-launched gliders will soar across the Washington University Field House in the Boeing Engineering Challenge to determine which has the farthest flight, the straightest path, the longest hang time, and highest quality of flight. The event begins at 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 1, in the field house.

Washington University School of Medicine and the Brown School have received a $4 million grant to study whether a new model of providing family planning services can reduce unintended pregnancies and births. As part of the study, they are recruiting 10,000 women of child-bearing age in the St. Louis area to participate.

David M. Holtzman, a leading expert in researching the underlying mechanisms that lead to Alzheimer’s disease, and Paul Michael Lützeler, an authority on 18th, 19th and 20th century German literature, will receive Washington University in St. Louis’ 2015 faculty achievement awards, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced.

Washington University School of Medicine neuroscientists, led by Michael R. Bruchas, PhD, assistant professor of anesthesiology and of neurobiology, have attached the light-sensing protein rhodopsin to opioid receptor parts to activate the receptor pathways using light from a laser fiber-optic device. They also influenced the behavior of mice using light, rather than drugs, to activate the reward response.

​​A student-led strategic consulting firm, The BALSA Group, is expanding the technology transfer capabilities of the university while broadening career opportunities for its members and supporting local economic growth and development. BALSA has become a national model for similar student groups.​

​Longtime Washington University in St. Louis benefactors Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer were presented with the Search Award at the university’s 48th annual William Greenleaf Eliot Society dinner April 22 at the Ritz-Carlton, St. Louis hotel. ​

Carrie Pettus-Davis, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has been tapped to serve as executive director for the Concordance Institute for Advancing Social Justice, the research initiative of a new public, private and academic partnership aimed at lowering incarceration rates in the United States.

This spring, the schools of Engineering & Applied Science, Arts & Sciences and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis launched “The Sustainability Exchange,” a unique course bringing students from across campus together to work on interdisciplinary teams to tackle real-world challenges in energy, environment and sustainability.